M.S. Thesis Defense - Andre Lokasari

Date: 17 Apr, 2008
Time: 11:00 AM
Location: 223 Atanasoff Hall
Topic: A Cognitive Model for Spatial Ability
Major Professor(s): Leslie Miller


Abstract:

ABSTRACT
The effectiveness of software interface design is a lot of the times tied to the user of the software. In particular, it is tied to how users comprehend the spatial stimuli presented to them through the software interface (spatial information encoding). Thus, understanding the aspects of different level of spatial ability on a spatial software interface is then necessary for the following reasons:
Creating a theoretical structure of spatial ability on a simple task as a stepping stone to understanding a more complex demanding task;
With the knowledge of the different spatial ability aspects involved, being able to design a more adaptive software interface to suit different level of spatial ability.
In order to achieve the goals above, there are a few spatial ability aspects that have been identified to approach the research: visualization, perceptual speed, and visuospatial memory.
To examine the impact of spatial ability on using user interfaces, we developed a set of user interfaces that required the user to interpret an instruction and choose the matching buttons. In total three interfaces were developed ranging from simply matching colors to an interface based on the address canvassing task used by the Census Bureau to identify the correct location of housing units. A cognitive model was developed for the interfaces that incorporated spatial ability. The model was implemented using ACT/R and evaluated against user studies involving 63 participants.